Local community leaders and organizations have joined nationwide calls for justice in the wake of the shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida on Feb. 16.
Mario Salas, an East Side activist, former city councilman and civil rights leader, said shock turned to indignation that George Zimmerman, who is accused of shooting the unarmed black teen, has yet to be charged. Salas has scheduled a press conference at 9 a.m. March 31 at the Martin Luther King statue at East Houston Street and North New Braunfels Avenue to address the shooting.
?We'll be demanding justice in this case,? Salas said. ?We're concerned about violations of civil rights. We'll be talking about federal justice charges being filed.?
Around the country, the teen's shooting death has sparked outrage and triggered dialogue about racial profiling and the role of race in public safety, self-defense and guns.
While the U.S. Justice Department leaped into the controversy with an investigation of its own, the case drew many Americans into an issue that men of color have to think about every day: driving ? or in Trayvon Martin's case, walking ? while black, said Carey Latimore, a Trinity University assistant professor of history and co-chair of its African American Studies program.
?People have made assumptions of me,? said Latimore, a minister with a doctorate. ?I've gone onto elevators and had people grab on to their bags. I've been followed in stores, and I've never stolen anything in my life.?
?Maybe it's not racism,? he said, ?but it is racial.?
Critics have charged that the accusation that Martin ?looked suspicious? was based on little more than the color of his skin.
But what happened in the Florida case doesn't surprise Latimore. ?That's the sad part,? he said. ?I've seen it. I've felt it. It's painful.?
There isn't any ambiguity or anything that accuses the slain teen of any wrongdoing, said Cary Clack, former San Antonio Express-News columnist.?It's rare that you have a case where it's so blatant that someone is dead who did nothing to be responsible for his death,? Clack said. ?It speaks to our whole issue with race in this nation. If Zimmerman was black, it's still an outrage and if Trayvon was white, it's still an outrage.?
Zimmerman claimed self-defense, which lays the burden of proof on police and prosecutors under Florida's ?Stand Your Ground? law.
The statute is a black eye on the entire country and shouldn't be on the books, said Oliver Hill, president of the San Antonio branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Hill said he always talked to his children about what to do if they were stopped by law enforcement officers.
He advised them to not make certain moves, to let officers know whenever they might reach for something and to treat officers with respect and hopefully they would show them the same respect.
?Trayvon could've been my son,? Hill said. ?It's every parent's nightmare to get a call and learn something has happened to your child.?
He said the nation needs to change the perception that black youth are troublemakers.
Nettie Hinton, an East Side resident who lived through the civil rights movement and took part in protests in Washington D.C., said she thought the nation had moved past these kinds of incidents.
?What's old is new again,? she said. ?And some of that same behavior has been freed to walk the streets again. We're better than that.?
Taj Matthews, who runs the Claude & ZerNona Black Foundation, called the shooting a murder that the police department in Florida ?legitimized as if it gave a stamp of approval to it.?
Matthews said he teaches his kids if somebody does something to tell their parents first, and if they're not around, to defend themselves.
?Self defense means somebody is attacking you or family and you haven't done anything to provoke them,? Matthews said. ?If someone approaches my kids, I'm going to tell them to run or fight back.?
He said he hasn't heard of any recent cases of racial profiling involving local law enforcement.
In 2006 a San Antonio police officer stopped two young black men on Jackson Keller Road. The officer shot one of the men he believed had a handgun, grazing his forehead. The man turned out to have only keys in his hand. The officer said the men matched the description of a robber in the area.
Imam Omar Shakir of Masjid Bilal Islamic community said concerns within the Muslim community revolved around any appearance of injustice or profiling for any human being. After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, there were several incidents in which Muslims were targeted in San Antonio and around the nation.
?We still have these concerns among law enforcement and other people with a devaluing of human life; to say this element doesn't exist is na?ve,? Shakir said. ?That's the concern; it could happen to me or anyone.?
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